Researchers focused on dispositional optimists – defined as people with a personality trait allowing them to believe, rightly or wrongly, that generally good things happen to them more often than not. According to the study, those with the trait put less effort toward their job search and spend less time searching as positions are offered to them faster than pessimists.

My thoughts? One big eye-roll.

The current unemployment rate in Los Angeles County is over 13 percent. So, I’m to believe that a peppy, cheerful attitude on the part of those fortunate enough to find employment helped them land that job? I think not.

The idea that someone is hardcoded to think, “Hey, everything is going to be eh-OK,” doesn’t ring true. Optimism comes from someone being aware they have an incredible support system. I’m sure the majority of the MBA students (the study’s sample group) who were classified as optimistic, regardless of social or economic status, had a support system that assured their success. A person is prone to optimism during a job search if they know people with contacts in the market, stellar advice and supportive words or can provide financial support in the interim period before landing a position.

When those comforts are extracted, a less resilient individual who finds it hard to cope is discovered. Simply, without support – that fluffy pillow to land on when setbacks occur – a pessimist emerges.

It is mentioned that there are other factors explaining an optimists’ job hunt success that are not touched on in the study. Um, understatement?

Quite frankly, these findings are ridiculous. And if I’m considered a pessimist for feeling that way, I don’t give a damn.

I don’t like the burqa.While some argue that it protects women from harassment, it can be a way of isolating and disempowering them. But there is much I don’t like in the religious, tribal, ethnic and national traditions of every society. I’m not crazy about the biblical passage that creates Eve to be under Adam’s foot. I object to Paul’s exhortation to keep women silent in church. Sati, the Hindu tradition of a widow being thrown on her husband’s funeral pyre is, uh, problematic. But of the aforementioned customs and traditions, sati is the only one that to me reaches the level of needing governmental legislation.

The French have passed an act that would ban a face-covering in public. Now they do not name Muslims but ban all such coverings in secular language. Their motives are as transparent as a veil is not. They argue that this is about the dignity of women. While I agree with their perception and intent, this is unworkable and inappropriate.

If the argument were security, then Yes. People have to be willing to be stopped and identified in this age of terror. Religious modesty cannot provide the means of delivering bombs to public places. But dignity legislated by the government? This is truly a slippery slope.

Will they next outlaw Orthodox Jewish women from wearing wigs and keeping their hair (if any) covered in public? Will Jewish Orthodox women be made tear down the mechtizah, the barrier separating men and women during services in the name of equal rights? Will male circumcision be banned as inhumane? Even now, Sweden is working on this–conflating female genital mutilation with male circumcision. They have already banned Kosher slaughter on humane grounds and all kosher meat in Sweden is imported.

The veil is not Quranic. The Quran,the Torah and the Paul’s Epistles, demand only modesty. Then a bunch of men get together and define it. Do I like it? No. But is it the government’s job to outlaw religious customs? Sometimes the answer is yes, such as female genital mutilation and sati–but veils, wigs, male circumcision and Kosher or Hallal? No.

Viva la France. Aside from eating French crepes, drinking French wine and engaging in haute couture, they recently began putting a finger on their French Muslim problem. I have nothing against decent, law-abiding Muslims. It’s just the rock throwing, bomb-carrying-anti-anything-that-is-not-them element that are the pain, and it is those who watch them in silence that are the other pains.

France, and the many other countries have been having trouble with them, have been treated like lotto winners in a five-star hotel. Yet they have returned the favor either by burning cars or blowing things and people up. Let’s face it. It’s not the way to ingratiate oneself to the natives.

So being sick of the problem and the smell of burning rubber, the French finally hunkered down and created a law prohibiting women from covering their faces in public. Although no religious group is named, people know who it is aimed towards, and even more so, the unruly masses begged for it.

Granted that only about 2,000 women out of the six million Muslim women residing there wear burqas, it at least makes a statement. At its most elementary level, it’s a safety issue because suicide bombers used to hide explosives under them as they strolled the streets and marketplaces during our war in Iraq. And if it happened then, it could happen again. Other than that, the French are using this as a starting point to say that they have had enough of the hooligans that they have welcomed to their country and have fed, clothed and placated as they watched France and the rest of the free world turn into a battle ground. And they are one of the few European countries brave enough to take a stand. But it is going to be a long legal battle and a long, hard road given how their Muslim population has expressed their sentiments in the past. In the end, merci to France and bon chance.

I’d like to weigh in on the parking meter debate especially now that I am a long recovered meter violator. Within my first few weeks of coming out here long before Rodney King’s name became a household word and the infamous Northridge Earthquake, I racked up $500.00 in meter fines. Once I parked my compact car in the middle of one of those things. Then I got a ticket by not pulling up enough proving once again that there is no pleasing certain people, especially meter maids. In fact, I’ve heard that they have to take a special test for anal-retentiveness, overall misery and other misanthropic qualities.

The city should hire someone with my cheerful disposition to do the job. Judging by how people parked their cars, with their tires pointing willy nilly, this way and that towards the curb, I would try and surmise what kind of a day each person was having and leave a note on their car urging them to cheer up, to do better next time or not to be so cheap.

Fie on anyone who says that the parking meter is a great moneymaker. The way money is being spent in this city and state, the average person would think that a funnel with the money from meters and such coming in at the top end leading into certain people’s lined pockets was our method of accounting.

Fie on that one as well. The best thing to do is to do away with them whole lot. Ban them all. Have a Farenheit 451 scrap metal meter burning party. Turn the things into scrap metal and use them for plumbing in houses in less affluent neighborhoods. Use the malfunctioning ones with holes in them in the meter maids houses. Send the ones who fulfill their quotas overseas to fight our wars. Give them a constrictive outlet for their frustrations. Only do away with that job and those contraptions.

We should follow Florida’s lead, though. They painted their parking meters in cheerful yellow with flowers on them with the words “Help the Homeless” painted on each one. The money isn’t going to be given to them directly, but rather will be used for programs to help the ones who want to help themselves.

This just may make the city a kinder, more livable place where we could all just get along.

As a child of the 60s, when I’m outraged by injustice and even mild unfairness, I do not write odes. Ashley is just a better and more balanced person that I. When I get mad, I seek a remedy. Our unfair city is now demanding that even if we have lost money in a parking meter, we have to move and try another one, or get a ticket. This shows us all that our government is not here to serve the public but to service us–and not in a good way. When the city offers something (a parking place), takes our money and then doesn’t provide what we paid for and then wants to fine us, this is fraud squared.

The idea that having been defrauded out of a parking space we spent money to rent, the city puts the burden on us to continue searching and continue feeding the beast, is not simply unfair but I promise will get litigated. It is further proof, if proof be necessary, that our city services are not about services but revenue. Our police and parking enforcement personnel are far too busy making money and not protecting the public or ensuring the fair circulation of parking spaces.

As our city’s debt gets worse, the city, given this horrible precedent, is apt to stop repairing meters and letting more meters stay in failed mode. After all, people who park at bad meters and are ticketed will be much better revenue sources than those who pay.

Most of the new traffic infractions have fines raised to a degree that many citizens just can’t pay. The purpose of traffic and parking fines has shifted from deterrence to revenue production.

Please, Dear Public, do not write odes, write your council member, your state senator and assembly representative. Make noise. Protest. This is, what Rudi Giuliani (not usually one of my heroes lately) called a quality of life crime. Like broken windows and graffiti, it is just one more little thing that alienates us from our government and is toxic to the social contract. It must not be allowed to stand!
2010 Jonathan Dobrerwww.Dobrer.com

Parking at a failed meter is no longer an option. A few days ago, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation began placing stickers warning drivers that they must pay, in one form or another, to park. The old coin meters are being phased out, meaning there is less than a one percent chance you’ll come in contact with a coin and card meter that won’t accept payment in at least one form (credit, debit or cash).

The new meters will save the city money, but I can’t help but be sad to lose one of the few moments I get to feel as if I’m teaching the city a lesson. If you don’t keep the meters working, I park for free.

With that said, it’s time for me to say goodbye.

An ode to failed parking meters

You served me and my friends well during our adventures out of the San Fernando Valley.
The many times we leisurely ate at a restaurant in Hollywood one could never tally.

To the many UCLA students who braved the Westwood streets looking for a space,
Their day was made better when like the golden ticket, they found you.
It was fate.

Yes, you may have been vandalized by those who wanted to make luck where it didn’t exist.
For upstanding citizens, you made the sun shine brighter on a trip to Santa Monica and more.
A long list.

Most importantly, the coin and card parking meters have nothing on you.
I’ll never forget the sweet music the unused coins made in my wallet.
Sadly, future generations will only know of the new.

Hi Ashley. Interesting article. However, I’m going to offer not so much advice as perspective across the generation gap. In the bible Ecclesiastes observes that there is nothing new under the sun. Across the ages each generation has believed it has invented reality. Though I’m not technically a Boomer–I missed the cut-off, January 1945, by 3 months–still, I am a child of the 60s. That’s my generation. So I know that we invented drugs, sex and rock and roll. This, of course ignores the obvious sex question of how our parents and grand parents got here. It also ignores ancient art and the depictions of sex acts that we believed we had patented. How embarrassing to see them in Hindu as well as Roman art. As for drugs. Well, the ancients had opium and hashish. The 19th century gave up cocaine and then heroin to cure opium addiction. And everyone had alcohol. Our Native Americans had peyote and their southern neighbors magic mushrooms and coca. Tragically, my generation didn’t even invent rock and roll. Arguably that began in the African American community in the 40s.

Logically, there is little reason to be surprised at the Millennial’s view that they have invented brand new ways of communicating and seeking advice, support and wisdom through Face Book, Twitter and all the other social networks. The technology may be different, the speed enhanced and the distribution wider, but the form remains the same.

Of course relying on a group for advice has its own perils. The wisdom of the group may be like the accuracy of Wikipedia i.e. Pretty good much of the time but way off sometimes when it really counts. Group sourcing either information or wisdom is predicated on the “law of large numbers,” which holds that any individual may be an ill-informed moron, but pile them up in large enough numbers and somehow wisdom will emerge. It is a kind of populism that discounts specialists and experts. And while, yes, experts too can be terribly wrong, my experience with the Internet does not encourage me to give equal weight to individuals or a mass of humanity whom I have not vetted.

Now, the careful reader will have observed that my criticism of group sourcing should also logically apply to democracy itself. And it does.

Isn’t democracy also really based on the law of large numbers and the faith that while individual voters might be prejudiced, ill-informed and ignorant that when they come together and become the “People” they magically have some kind of cumulative wisdom? Well, yes. That is the underlying assumption and our communal faith. And quite a few elections seem to refute it.

The assumption of both democracy and group sourcing is a kind of mad alchemy. It holds that if you pile ignorance high enough it transmutes into wisdom. It is like believing that a mountain of manure, if large enough, by shear weight will transmute itself into gold.

The thing is, Ashley, it does sometimes seem to work, but it is not new. For, indeed, there is nothing new under the sun.

I’ve been gifted with a tell-me-your-problems face. And, I’m not quite sure if this is a blessing or curse. But, being that I have this quality, I find myself constantly giving advice to friends. Sometimes I fight the urge to answer their request for counsel with, “Remember when you asked me how I was doing five minutes ago and I told you my life was in shambles? Sure you want to take my advice?” This repetitive scenario is the very reason I took such an interest in last week’s Wall Street Journal column aptly titled, “Want My Advice? Um, Not Really.”

Columnist Jeffrey Zaslow shares that while there has always been a hesitation on the part of youth to take advice from their elders, the “advice gap” has further widened. This, in part, due to generational differences in perspective, work ethic and technology, as expressed in a Pew Research Center poll published last year.

As a Millennial, I believe my generation’s choice for guidance comes down to two simple things: 1.) we spend an immeasurable amount of time conversing with friends making it way easier to ask their advice, and 2.) Really, friends have an awesome of way of telling you what you want to hear, not always what you need to hear.

Yes, Millennials may be the first generation to text our parents. However, we still spend more time communicating with our friends than with our elders. A text here and there doesn’t compare to the non-stop conveyer belt of communication via text, Facebook, Twitter, Gchat, etc. that keeps Millennials abreast of their peers’ actions. In order to get advice, I don’t need to explain how I came to need the advice. My friends accumulated that background info as it occurred.

Secondly, when asking a friend for advice, there is a likelihood that they think like you or you can convince them that your first inclination on the issue is correct. Though I cringe to agree, there is some truth to Millenials being the “me” generation. Baby boomer parents nurtured our sense of entitlement, but now that we need to start taking adulthood seriously, they no longer tell us what we want to hear. Our solution? We’ll just find another source to soothe our ego.

So, eager to give Millennials advice and more importantly, understand our rationale? All you can do is take comfort in the fact that most likely, our first approach to a problem will be misguided. And when we do finally get it right, it will be because we gave in to that nagging parental voice.

If that isn’t enough comfort, be happy that you need not worry about being gifted with the tell-me-your-problems face.

Pastor Terry Jones, who wants to burn Qurans on 9-11, is a very good example of a very bad example. Whether he is just a publicity seeker with ambitions of fame or delusions of power, he is not the poster child for Christian virtue. Those parts of the Gospel that tell Christians that God is Love and ask us all “How we could love God whom we have not seen and not our brothers whom we have seen,” well, he must have missed those parts. His stunt of burning Qurans, whether he goes through with it or aborts it, is harmful to us as a nation, to Christians and, of course and intentionally, to Muslims. Stirring this ugly pot will cost human beings their lives. We in the Jewish Community have experienced with being mocked, marginalized, stereotyped and hated.

My purpose however is not to decry his idiocy–there are already plenty of good Christians, Jews and Humanists, across the political spectrum who stand against his hateful act. My purpose and my question is if we can extract anything worthwhile from this sad affair? Are there lessons to be learned and wisdom to be gained? I think so.

The hate and intolerance that proceed from knowing that only you have the truth and all other opinions, beliefs or faiths are intrinsically wrong and morally evil, look the same in every faith and political belief. As the Taliban destroyed the great Buddhist sculptures in Afghanistan because it they were seen as idols and therefore an affront to God, so Pastor Terry would destroy the holy text of Islam because he believes it is evil. Mind you, this has little to do on the surface with 9-11. This is purely a “religious” act that no matter how peaceful a Muslim individual or community might be, they are still, not just different, but actively evil. Why? Because, they don’t believe in his version of the bible.

They might feed the hungry, clothe the naked and plead for the widow and orphan, but that’s not good enough for Pastor Jones. They might, and in fact do, believe that Jesus was born of a virgin and is the Word, Sign, Messenger and Apostle of God, but these too are useless in his small theology. Their Holy Book is different from the Gospel narrative and therefore is an affront to him–as he speaks, acts and burns for all Christendom.

This is the nature of violent extremists as well as extremists whose words and acts lead to violence. It is the mark of Al Qaeda who would kill all non-believers, including Shiites and Sunni who do not conform to their narrow view. It is the mark Yigal Amir who assassinated Yitzak Rabin of Israel-as well as other Jewish extremists who act without mercy or restraint to impose their own view. Pastor Terry Jones is in bad company, but in a strange way he should feel at home with all who distort and pervert the universal messages of love to be found in the living heart of most religions.
2010 Jonathan Dobrerwww.Dobrer.com

The Obama Hates America theme is not hyperbole. It has been relentlessly played for all it’s worth from the second that then Democratic presidential candidate Obama announced in February 2007 that he would seek the White House. It almost certainly will be played hard again in the days leading up to the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Obama’s one little step that could feed the wacky line is not telling yet where and how he’ll commemorate the day. This in itself supposedly is enough to show that the president disrespects, minimizes, or is cavalier about the hallowed day. It’s none of those things. But it’s just another in the pile of supposed anti-American sins that Obama is guilty of. The nutty knock of Obama as America hater is driven in part by ignorance, in part by politics, and in bigger part by race. The ignorance behind the attack line is easy to understand, and predictable. His name, the birth certificate flap, his frequent statement’s touting religious respect and tolerance for Muslims, and his refusal to flaunt and wave around his very private and personal expression of his Christian faith fuel the stupidity and suspicion about who and what he really is.

The politics behind the attack line is just as comprehensible. The line was set by presidential rival John McCain and run hard with by Sarah Palin VP pick during the campaign. McCain dropped veiled hints that Obama was a far out left liberal who was soft on terrorism, the Iraq war, and the Patriot act enforcement. The implication was that once in the White House he’d give away the company store to America’s sworn enemies.
Palin skipped the hints. She practically roared that Obama pals around with terrorists, left dictators, and commies. And that an Obama win would mean a leftwing takeover of the country. McCain’s hint was shrugged off, and Palin’s hit was outright mocked, ridiculed, and laughed at by much of the media. But millions didn’t laugh. They actually believed that Obama fit easily somewhere between Osama and Castro. Polls continued to show that those that said that Obama was an alien and a closet subversive hovered in the low double digit figure. In the past month, the same polls show that the number who say that about him has doubled, and they all aren’t’ Palin clones and cheerleaders. A lot of Independents and Democrats say the same thing.

Then there’s the unstated; and that’s race. There’s always been a deep feeling among many whites that African-Americans are inherent rebels against America’s institutions and values. During the late 1960′s that feeling took off. The mass civil rights demonstrations, protests, the black power surge, and the urban uprisings turned the myth of permanent black rebellion into the myth of black radicalism. This is and always has been nonsense. Yet, when facts crash hard against ingrained beliefs, and especially beliefs fueled by racial loathing, it’s no contest which will win out.

So it won’t make much difference whether Obama picks the World Trade Center site, the Pentagon, Arlington Cemetery, or the moon, to commemorate 9/11. His name, his religious tolerance, his race, and the relentless GOP smear machine have created the perfect storm to tag Obama as the president that hates America. The tweets from Palin, rightwing bloggers, and talk show gabbers snidely implying that Obama’s is that are probably already typed out and ready to go on 9/11 and beyond.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson